Tuesday, July 26, 2011

In the Williams Ave street, there was also this cool looking double decker bus which is actually a vintage clothing store. The bus is called Lodekka and yes, it is a British double decker bus. This place was cool because there's nothing like this in Portland before.

Nana got a couple items including a scarf.

Lodekka is definitely awesome, but unfortunately it's not TPF (tall people friendly). I felt like a giraffe in that bus.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

A while ago my family and I had a chance to check out a part of Portland that we've never been to. Initially, my sister suggested we try a new restaurant in the area and I thought what a great opportunity to explore the area also. The Williams avenue area is located in North Portland in the Boise Neighborhood. I never even knew such a inter-urban development took place in a place like Williams ave. The area I'm talking about is a good two and a half block stretch of restaurants, stores and coffee shops.

Me and the woman in some cool looking brick wall.

I like the random red double-triangles shapes in this building front.

This place is called Eat: An Oyster Bar. They have a pretty good size crowd in the weekends, I plan to try Eat pretty soon. Below is another view of the restaurant.

A cool lighting display at Ink&Peat. There were many decor pieces that I really like at this store.

Pix Patisserie is an awesome dessert hang out place. They are one of my favorite places to go to in Portland. This is their second location, their original location is on Division.

Friday, July 22, 2011

One of Portland's most exciting annual events is the Portland Blues Festival. Every year, thousands of people gather in the open grass area or in their boats in the Waterfront area in downtown Portland. You can hear the blues and jazz music fill the air when you walk in the city and you're automatically attracted to the event. I came to the event after work and walked along the Hawthorne bridge from the east side of the river towards the Waterfront. These were some of the interesting things I took pictures of as I walked on the bridge.

I thought food carts is the trend in Portland but I was wrong, now it's food boats. This dude was selling weenies on the water, ice cream also. I wonder if he could throw food up to me and I'll chuck some quarters to him. Maybe I'll try next year.

This is one of the few times where many boats gather out in the Willamette River.

A while ago, Nana and I were driving around south east Portland randomly turning left and right every other block until a couple vintage stores caught our eyes. We had to stop and check these places out because we're into a phase in our lives where we like old vintage pieces and items. It's nice to find these kinds of places because it makes Portland more attractive, but bad because it makes us want to spend all our money on antique/vintage pieces.

The place above is called the White Rabbit Vintage Furniture. We found this place on the historic Belmont Street. The store isn't too big but they carry a lot of nice items that I was drooling over.

The second vintage place we went to is called the House of Vintage in Hawthorne (below). This place in my opinion is the biggest vintage store in Portland, I could be wrong but I say it's the biggest because we kept going into these small rooms that led to another room and so on... It took us a good hour just to walk through the place with just skimming through the items. To look at every single thing would probably take us closer to three hours to finish. Anyways, both places are amazing, if you like these kind of places, please shop there and support them.

The usual pieces that catch my eyes are bottles, vintage cameras and posters.

Deep in the Nob Hill neighborhood in the middle of a residential area is this funny little park called the Macleay Park Lower. I was just walking around when all of the sudden I saw a huge group of people walking towards a dead end road. So I decided to follow them and they led me to this park. It turns out this isn't just a park but it's on of many entrances to the main MacLeay Park which is a part of the bigger Forest Park in the Portland Hills.

The park was cool, it had this old looking bridge which was pretty close to the ground and there were some old wooden structure around a small pocket of river deeper into the park.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Here are some interesting things that I saw during my walk west of NW 23rd street in Nob Hill (Uptown, Portland). The area is primarily a residential area, but a few streets in this area are hotspots which includes restaurants and shops like 23rd street, 21st street and Thurman street; to name a few. I posted about cool things around 21st street a couple post ago if you want to check it out. Click >here<.

Wallace City Park on Quimby

Mario Frogger

Flying Mario. I've seen many of these Mario art around Portland, at least five others than the two above. Keep your eye open to see if you can spot these around town.

This is the infamous Industrial District in NW Portland, where no one hardly ever goes to, but still an awesome place. I think this area is not for everyone, I love this area because I appreciate the aesthetic of classic industrial architecture, plus the textures and the old look on these buildings naturally look good on photo. There's not many commercial places for the public but a great place for those who just likes to walk around the city and appreciate urban history.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Since the weather this summer has been awkward, I try to take advantage of a nice day and just walk around Portland, especially to the parts I've never been to. One of the areas I never really go to is the area pass NW 23rd street. This area is more specifically between Uptown (23rd street) and the Industrial District towards the north. The neighborhood is this interesting combination of high-end old historical home, warehouses, and a bit of industrial buildings.

This area has a collection of cool places to eat at, most of which are in my forever growing "To Eat List."

Monday, July 18, 2011

One of many awesome streets to walk around in Portland is 21st street in Nob Hill which is located in Northwest Portland. Make sure you go on the north side of Burnside on 21st street and not the south part. Originally this area use to be residential only but in the past twenty years, it has developed into a street filled with restaurants, coffee shops, little book stores, bike shops, etc... you get the point. This funny chihuahua above was chilling in one of many coffee shops with its owner.

This coffee shop above is one of my favorites in this street, it's called the Coffee Time. It's just an awesome place to hang out with your friends and chill, they open late and their coffee is awesome. I use to go to this place a lot when I was in college.

Here are some of my other favorite restaurants/shops in the area:
- Melt - This place has some awesome burgers, my favorite is the Mushroom Swiss Burger.
- Paley's Place - It's on my "To Eat List" and heard so many good things about this place. It has a whopping 400 reviews online but very pricy.
- Ken's Artisan Bakery - A nice bakery with good pastries.
- Blue Moon Tavern & Grill - An awesome place for good food and pool tables.

- Serratto - A mediterranean restaurant, it's not for everyone but very good if you like this type of food. A bit pricy also but well worth it for me.
- Portland Modern - This place is a nice furniture place. Very modern and they carry many cool items.

Some cool pipes.

Daedalus Books is a great place to find books, Portland certainly has an interesting collection of items.